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I was hoping you guys would be able to point out the flaw in my reasoning. I was 50-50 between answer A) and C). I chose C) because overall it sounded better, but answer A) is messing with my head.

Answer choice A) states that the duties are NOT LESS COMPLEX than any others in the company. Because I had the answer choices narrowed down to A) and C) I decided to negate the answer choices to see if the negation would hurt the argument and confirm that the answer choice is necessary. When I negate A) I get that their duties "ARE LESS COMPLEX" than any others. Conclusion states that salary and complexity of duties should be reduced, but if their duties are already LESS COMPLEX than any others (I read it to mean "LEAST complex"), why should the complexity of the least complex duties be reduced?

Thus, I would think that it is necessary that their duties are more complex than they should be and hence there is room for reduction.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you for taking your time to answer the question.

Answer choice A is not necessary to the argument because it is simply a comparison to other employees and the conclusion of this argument is prescriptive language centered around what should be done with these two new employees.

With the negation of A, which is correctly said by you, it is: "The duties of the two newest employees are less complex than any others in the company." Which, as you said, is another way of saying that their duties are the least complex in the company.

However, note that there is another condition that needs to be discussed according to Barnes in this argument. He talks not only about the complexity of the duties, but about the experience as well. He is assuming that just because these guys are new that they are not experienced.

Barnes does not need answer choice A for his conclusion to remain true. This is because even if they have the least complex duties, their experience plays a role in determining their salary.

Thank you so much! I finally got it.